macOS Sonoma’s public beta is live and continues the ‘continuity’ trend Apple has been pushing for the past few years.
But in case that wasn’t enough of an iPhone vibe for you, the other big update that comes with this public beta is that you can now put widgets on your desktop. Widgets! … Now, this is neat. It also strikes me as one of those iOS carryovers that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense on a computer.
Is the writer even aware that Apple first introduced widgets in 1984 as “Desk Accessories”? This isn’t an iOS thing that carried over to the Mac; it’s a Mac thing that went through a lot of iterations over the years, migrated to iOS, and then came back to the Mac in a form that’s almost exactly the same as when they were originally introduced decades ago.
Not to be a crusty old man or anything, but I see this more and more in tech journalism. Which makes sense, I’m getting older and the journalists are younger. Tech is a "young " scene. but there is no collective memory. Anything that existed before the writer was old enough to be aware of it simply doesn’t exist. I’ve read articles about how Facebook messenger was “the first instant messenger” as if we didn’t have IRC, ICQ, or AIM back in the day (and older ones I’m sure). Or how TikTok is successful because it’s the first platform ever to bring short form video to the masses (completely forgetting Vine). Or even here, on Lemmy, about how the fediverse is something new - the first time there is decentralized discussing (ignoring USENET for example). On one hand it’s maddening that people don’t do their homework or have knowledge, but at the same time I recognize that I am completely guilt of being blind to tech before my time as well.
I enjoy collecting cassette tapes and VHS classics. I work in big tech all day and I like the retro stuff in my downtime. Found some video tapes thrifting this last weekend and the gen-z cashier asked me what they were and were surprised there were movies on these. So I get it.
Man, I do miss those old dashboard widgets. Does this means we would get something similar back? If each space can have different widgets, that would be even better.
I remember seeing Dashboard and thinking it was the coolest thing ever.
While reading the article I was wondering that haven’t desktop widgets been around for ages already.
But did they fix the settings app?
What do you mean by ‘fix’?
I haven’t noticed any noteworthy differences, by the way.
I think he means bringing back the catalina settings app. Loved it, especially compared to the overly minimalist thing we have now.
That’s almost impossible.
They’re not gonna have a Windows situation with 2 settings apps, and they have no good reason to revert their changes, since it would be against the unification of the interface across iOS and macOS they’ve been pushing hard for years.
I know, still a big reason i keep some macs on catalina and so
You can upgrade to Monterey at least. That’s where I’ll be staying until they introduce a feature worth upgrading for or they stop security patches for the OS.
Rly, thx didn’t know this i thought it came directly with big sur. Then i will probably upgrade to monterey if all my apps support it.
Well, by trying to unify iOS and MacOS they completely ruined the perfectly fine system settings app, and replaced it with something absolutely dreadful, slow and unintuitive.
Gotta say that the very NON-tech savvy people I know had one of these reactions to the change:
- they didn’t even notice;
- they like it better now;
- they don’t care at all as they never open it.
